Web Review: Shoorveer is a curate’s egg—great in parts

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Way back in 1988, we had a flop release in Shoorveer, a film directed by Sham Ralhan. In 2022, Shyam’s brother, late actor filmmaker O.P. Ralhan’s grandson, Armaan Ralhan, plays the protagonist of sorts in this series. And he is a great talent, like his late relative, if this series is any indication.

Shoorveer aspires to the heights of Juggernaut Productions’ recent patriotic dramas Avrodh 2 and Code M Season 2, but ends up as a curate’s egg of sorts—it is great in parts and quite tepid in the rest.

Again speaking of a pre-emptive action against a mega anti-India operation planned by Pakistan, it talk about Group Captain Ranjan Malik (Manish Chaudhari)’s brainchild—the concept of an elite force called the Hawks, as India’s first responders to enemy action. After Pakistan’s terrorist strike in Daman in Western India, the powers-that-be, led by Milind Phanse (Makrand Deshpande, looking totally different and better, thanks to a spruced-up hairdo) decide to give birth to Ranjan’s long-standing ambition-cum-dream.

Pakistan’s Riyaz Khan (Arif Zakaria), hell-bent on revenge on India also due to a personal agenda (a common trope now in such films and series that probably originated with Sarfarosh in 1999), plans a massive strike against India, and Indian intel get wind of it. Naturally, he has to be—preferably—annihilated. And the answer is the Hawks, a combination of the best of the Army, Navy and Air-Force.

But within the elite force now assembled are fallible human beings with their own closet skeletons, ego issues, personal passions and more. And of course, there is the wily Ranjan and his deputy, Jaspreet Bhatti (Kuldeep Sareen) who face all that. There is also an officer’s tot, his new love, tragic losses in the past and family issues. And of course a defective line of aircraft supplied by corrupt forces in Sweden (Bofors, anyone?)

The pace slacken and accelerates, much like the aircraft shown in the series, and director Kanishk Varma uses every means and gimmicks necessary to show his material, but the end result falls short of the passion and intensity we saw very recently in Avrodh 2.

Technically decent, the series has flashes of brilliant writing and powerful performances from Armaan Ralhan as ace pilot Viraj, Regina Cassandra as Avantika and Aadil Khan as Salim Kamali. Manish Chaudhari is effortless as always and among the rest, Jiten Lalwani as Shekhar Sen, Anjali Barot as Manju, Preeti Gupta as Roma, Shivya Pathania as Preeti and Kuldeep Sareen as Jaspreet stand out among an all-good cast. Kashmira Irani does well too as the cold and ruthless Sarah.

There is an opening for a Season 2, but thankfully, this episode sees a complete culmination. I think that unless the next season is planned from the very beginning in terms of a plot continuation, this is the way to go—there must be a finite end to a story when the season ends, for rarely will the next part come within a year. Especially if the show is interesting, I think it is not fair to the audience.

Rating: *** 

Dinsey+Hotstar presents Juggernaut Productions’ Shoorveer  Created by: Samar Khan Produced by: Aditya Pittie & Samar Khan  Directed by: Kanishk Verma  Written by: Bijesh Jayarajan, Samar Khan & Sagar Pandya  Music: Shezan Sheikh Starring: Armaan Ralhan, Regina Cassandra, Aadil Khan, Makrand Deshpande, Manish Chaudhari, Kashmira Irani, Anjali Barot, Preeti Gupta, Shivraj Walvekar, Dishita Jain, Arif Zakaria, Saptrishi Ghosh          Jiten Lalwani, Shivya Pathania, Harman Singha, Lars Kjeldsen, India Woods, Kuldeep Sareen, Abhishek Saha, Amit Behl, Dipali Kamat & others